Author: Justin Stebbing, Professor of Biomedical Sciences, Anglia Ruskin University

_H pylori_ is already known to cause gastric cancer. Liya Graphics/ Shutterstock A bacterium that can live quietly in the stomach for decades may have an unexpected connection with bowel cancer. A new study estimates that exposure to Helicobacter pylori (H pylori) could be associated with more than one in five cases of bowel cancer […]

Komsan Loonprom/Shutterstock.com Human papillomavirus (HPV) vaccination is already saving lives in the UK – and the scale of that success is striking. Among young women who received the jab as schoolgirls, there have been no recorded deaths from cervical cancer in recent years. Between 2020 and 2024, no woman in England aged 20 to 24 […]

Video_Stock _Production/Shutterstock For many men with prostate cancer, the word “radiotherapy” still conjures up weeks of daily hospital trips: 20 or more sessions, Monday to Friday, for a month or longer. A new NHS England programme aims to shrink that burden dramatically by offering eligible men a highly focused form of radiotherapy that treats the […]

Yuganov Konstantin/Shutterstock.com Breast cancer treatment has come a long way, but one of the hardest questions has always been: who really needs chemotherapy, and who can safely do without it? Chemotherapy saves lives, but it also comes with serious side-effects and long‑term risks. A new study, presented at the American Society of Clinical Oncology’s annual […]

Piece of Cake/Shutterstock.com Linus Pauling was one of the most brilliant scientists of the 20th century. He won two Nobel prizes and transformed our understanding of chemical bonds and the structure of proteins. Late in his career, though, he became famous for something very different: a passionate belief that very high doses of vitamin C […]

Frame Stock Footage/Shutterstock.com NHS England’s new national cancer plan focuses on catching cancer earlier and treating it faster. The government has also promised to meet all cancer waiting-time targets by 2029. This includes a long-missed target, namely that most patients should start treatment within 62 days of being referred by their GP. Why does the […]

Dragon Images/Shutterstock.com Cancer and Alzheimer’s disease are two of the most feared diagnoses in medicine, but they rarely strike the same person. For years, epidemiologists have noticed that people with cancer seem less likely to develop Alzheimer’s, and those with Alzheimer’s are less likely to get cancer, but nobody could explain why. A new study […]